Is there enough water for Forest City?

East Anglia is one of the driest regions in Britain, and water is the most legitimate constraint on growth around Cambridge. It's also why Forest City is designed around water from day one, rather than treating it as someone else's problem like typical developers do.

At the centre of the city is a 1,600 acre reservoir, providing over half the city's water needs, alongside being a lake to swim and boat in and a home for nature. Britain hasn't completed a major new reservoir in over 30 years; Forest City will build one as core infrastructure, connected into Anglian Water's strategic network for resilience. Every home is built to modern water efficiency standards with reuse and sustainable drainage designed in, so residents use a fraction of the water of the average British household.

Forest City will build its own water supply—the new 1,600-acre reservoir, advanced treatment works and strategic pipeline connections—costed at up to £4.5 billion within the £45 billion infrastructure budget. One claim made in Parliament added £4 billion of water costs on top of that budget, but the water infrastructure is already inside the £45 billion. Counting it twice doesn't reveal a black hole; it reveals a double count.

Compare the alternative: 340,000 homes scattered across the region as village extensions, each drawing on the same strained rivers and chalk aquifers, with developers left without responsibility for building new water supply.